Downed trees with wasp and hornet nests in NC national forest spur warning for hikers

A potentially dangerous twist has emerged in recovery efforts from last week’s catastrophic flooding in western North Carolina.

Some of the large trees that fell across roads and hiking trails are hosting big wasp and hornet nests, the U.S. Forest Service has found. Both insects are known to swarm and sting when their nests are disturbed.

The discovery resulted in a warning for hikers to stay off the heavily traveled Elk Falls Trail, also known as Elk River Falls Trail.

“A tree with a large wasp nest has fallen across the trail. A crew is in route to clear the tree. The district is asking visitors to stay off the trail until the tree can be cleared,” the forest service wrote late Thursday on Facebook.

The cleanup crew didn’t describe the size of this nest, but yellowjacket nests can host as many as 800 “workers,” the N.C. State Extension reports.

On Monday, a similar discovery was made in the Nantahala National Forest. Firefighters were trying to clear a tree off Cowee Bald Road and found a hornet’s nest, officials said in a Facebook post.

The nest “had to be removed before the crew could safely cut the tree,” officials said.

North Carolina is home to European hornets and baldfaced hornets. Nests for European hornets can have up to 1,000 workers, N.C. State Extension reports.

Multiple sites remain closed on U.S. Forest Service land due to flood damage caused by the remnants of Tropical Storm Fred.

Sliding Rock in Pisgah National Forest is closed due to heavy debris on the viewing platform and in the water, McClatchy News reported this week.

Price Lake along the Blue Ridge Parkway was “emptied” when its dam sustained damage, and a large log jam is stuck at the top of Looking Glass Falls in Pisgah National Forest, McClatchy News reported. The clump of trees is about a half-acre in size and “is lodged just above the 60-foot drop,” officials say.